Peyton paints the romance and mystique of musicians from Jarvis Cocker to Jessye Norman.

Elizabeth Peyton: Here She Comes Now

Elizabeth Peyton rose to fame in the early 1990s as a painter energetically renewing portraiture’s relationship to popular culture. Consciously locating her work in the tradition of nineteenth-century painters of society and celebrity such as Manet, Peyton uses a loose, sensuous figuration to portray the young, the famous and the glamorous of our times. Alongside portraits of royalty and artist friends, she has become particularly famed for her portraits of musicians. This publication groups together her portraits of rock musicians such as David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Doherty, Noel and Liam Gallagher, John Lydon and Keith Richards, and opera singers such as Jessye Norman, Jonas Kaufmann and Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld--depicted not in traditional poses, but in performance. Based on snapshots or archival photographs, these portraits express Peyton’s intensive examination of the vulnerability of live artistic creation. The source photographs are presented here en face with the final works, surveying oil paintings and works on paper from the last 20 years.Elizabeth Peyton was born in Connecticut in 1965 and studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her work is in the collections of leading museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Her recent solo exhibitions include Live Forever (New Museum, Walker Art Center, 2008); Reading and Writing (Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2009); Wagner (the Gallery Met, New York, 2011); and Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton (Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, 2011). Peyton lives and works in Long Island, New York City and Berlin.

Featured image is reproduced from Elizabeth Peyton: Here She Comes Now.

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/6/2013

"What Wondrous Thing Do I See… Lohengrin, Jonas Kaufmann" (2005) is reproduced from Elizabeth Peyton: Here She Comes Now, published by Walther König. Produced for an exhibition in Baden-Baden, Germany, the book collects portraits of Peyton's performer-muses — ranging from opera stars like Kaufmann (pictured) to rock stars like David Bowie, Kurt Cobain and Jarvis Cocker — alongside the original source photographs that inspired them. In an interview with Dodie Kazanjian, Peyton says of Kaufmann, "I was completely unaware of him until I saw him on stage (as Siegmund) in Die Walküre at the Met. I had no idea who he was. He made the role so alive. I was on the edge of my seat, wondering what was going to happen to him. Even though I liked the idea of opera, I'd never seen anything that I connected to that way. There was something about his ability to act. Emotionally, he was giant. The way he conveyed the feeling of what was happening, and his love for Sieglinde. We always want to be moved like that. He gives us access to feelings we wouldn't have otherwise." continue to blog

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/4/2013

"Pete (Peter Doherty)" (2005) is reproduced from Elizabeth Peyton: Here She Comes Now, published by Walther König and launching Thursday, September 5 at BOOKMARC on Bleecker Street, New York. Produced for an exhibition in Baden-Baden, Germany, the book collects portraits of Peyton's performer-muses — ranging from opera stars like Jonas Kaufmann and Waltraud Meier to rock stars like Doherty, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain and Jarvis Cocker — alongside the original source photographs that inspired them. continue to blog

Elizabeth Peyton rose to fame in the early 1990s as a painter energetically renewing portraiture’s relationship to popular culture. Consciously locating her work in the tradition of nineteenth-century painters of society and celebrity such as Manet, Peyton uses a loose, sensuous figuration to portray the young, the famous and the glamorous of our times. Alongside portraits of royalty and artist friends, she has become particularly famed for her portraits of musicians. This publication groups together her portraits of rock musicians such as David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Doherty, Noel and Liam Gallagher, John Lydon and Keith Richards, and opera singers such as Jessye Norman, Jonas Kaufmann and Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld--depicted not in traditional poses, but in performance. Based on snapshots or archival photographs, these portraits express Peyton’s intensive examination of the vulnerability of live artistic creation. The source photographs are presented here en face with the final works, surveying oil paintings and works on paper from the last 20 years.

Elizabeth Peyton was born in Connecticut in 1965 and studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her work is in the collections of leading museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Her recent solo exhibitions include Live Forever (New Museum, Walker Art Center, 2008); Reading and Writing (Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2009); Wagner (the Gallery Met, New York, 2011); and Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton (Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, 2011). Peyton lives and works in Long Island, New York City and Berlin.